The Beautiful & Surprising Way Moms Can Preserve Their Placentas

I am all about the placenta. Though I would stop short at the placenta teddy bear mostly because I already have too many stuffed animals in my house and cannot deal with one more. Please! No more! Placenta smoothies, placenta pills, placenta jewelry, placenta prints -- love it all. I also love the ritual of burying the placenta into the earth after birth. The placenta is like the tree of life. The nourisher. It's mystical and magical and perhaps I've grossed you out. So maybe if you're not into placentography in the same way I am and you're not going to eat it even in pill form, maybe you would love the latest thing I've seen done with a placenta, and that's make a frame out of it.

Making a frame out of a placenta! It's so poetic. The picture you can frame could be of your child. It's so encompassing! Protective! And fitting!

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Artist Amanda Cotton has her MA in sustainable design. When she was in school, her roommate was a midwife and she became very interested in her studies as well. Earth! Life! Placenta picture frames! To make this frame, Cotton boils and cooks it, much like how it's done to make pills. She grinds it into small pieces and then places it into a mold and seals it with resin. Cotton is based in the UK, but these placenta frames sell for around 100 US dollars. Insert adorable photo of your baby and voila! It's like being in the womb all over again. Sort of. Cotton said:

It is my belief that human by-products have just as valid an aesthetic value as their virginal material resource. From this starting point, I chose to create souvenirs which pinpoint key times in one's life, using materials of personal significance. My work is all about our incredible bodies creating materials which we love and care for yet, once separated from us, we are repulsed by and we feel the need to discard then. My work is about expressing the amazing and intricate materials our bodies provide. It is quite common for people to keep their baby's by-products such as the umbilical cord, first tooth or hair clippings to document their progress, along with photos and notes. The placenta is one of the first creations the mother and baby make together -- why not celebrate that with a keepsake?

Exactly, Amanda! I love this sentiment. I love the frames. The only thing I don't like is that the whole placenta is used to make them so that would mean no pills or smoothies. But if you're not into that, then the frame can be added to the list of things to do with your placenta.